


There's a beast on my skin and it's looking for you

by Verse



Series: Of cliché soulmates stories [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, F/M, Romance, Soulmate AU, cross-posted on ff.net and tumblr, what am I supposed to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-26 23:58:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2671229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verse/pseuds/Verse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your tattoo will stop staying still when you'll meet your soulmate. You knew it. Everybody did. It still didn't stop you from being surprised when it happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Swan and Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> First fic posted on ao3! I'm a bit nervous, to be honest. But hey, hope you enjoy! :]

You were born with a swan on the shoulder.

When you were younger, you used to wonder who would it animate for. Would it be a prince? A gentleman thief? That kind of things kept you up at night.

As you went older, though, those thoughts slowly slipped out of your mind. It’s not that you didn’t care; you just had better things to do. Unsurprisingly, learning all the proper way to be the perfect heiress left very few room for worrying about love.

This was why, when you suddenly felt a tickle on your shoulder as you were heading toward the grocery shop, your first emotion have been complete and utter surprise.

Your tattoo, however, didn’t let you time to think. You felt it moving against your skin, flying down your right arm, flapping its wings frenetically toward a nearby street.

You knew what it meant. Everyone did.

You started running.

You don’t know what you were expecting. You’ve been told that soulmates were rarely how you thought they’d be. Since you were either heading toward the garage or the kindergarten, you supposed you could abandon the whole prince charming idea. But still, would he be nice? Smart? Strong? Cat person or dog person?

Your thoughts are violently interrupted by someone running into you.

"Oh, sorry, I was-"

The end of that sentence as never heard.

In front of you, there is a girl, young, dressed in dirty overalls and holding loosely a screwdriver in her left hand.

On her right one, waving its tail happily, is a wolf tattoo staring right at your own swan.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was commonly believed that lacking tattoos meant lacking a soulmate.  
> This belief was more often than not prooved wrong.

You weren’t born with a tattoo.

It comes with being a faunus; you can have ears, tails, scales, spikes, paws, whatever you want, but no tattoo. For a long time, it’d been used as the proof that fauna didn’t actually have a soul; and even now, it was commonly believed that they couldn’t have a soulmates.

Truly, they were lesser beings.

That assumption always left a bad taste in your mouth. Wither or not you had a soulmate didn’t matter to you; however, that people thought you lacked feelings and intelligence because of something that stupid never failed to piss you off.

But what could you say? You can’t help how you are born.

You hid the ears; it was hilarious, how a simple bow could change the way people treated you. Though, you never forgot -not that you could have, anyway- who you truly were inside.

That was why, when a strong hand clasped on your shoulder, your first reaction have been aggressiveness.

Then surprise.

Then confusion.

"Uhm, hello! Hehe, I guess we’re soulmates, aren’t we?"

In front of you, looking extremely nervous despite her bright smile, was a tall blonde in a tank top.

Dancing on her arms was the most majestic dragon tattoo you’ve ever seen.


	3. Pigeon and Snake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You don't remember the time when your tattoo wasn't moving.

There was an awfully lot of people who assumed that you hadn't met your soulmate yet.

To be fair, your snake didn't move often; it preferred to sleep most of the time, curled around your chest and resting its head on the side of your neck.

But even when it looked like a real unmoving tattoo, it was never totally still; you could feel the light pressure of its weight on your body, the tickle of its pseudo-chest raising on your skin.

And you don't remember a time when it wasn't this way.

You've read somewhere, that, on average, people found their soulmates between 20 and 30 years old. There were still a lot of occurrences past that and during teen years, of course, but way less. Very few people stayed soulmateless past 50 years old.

You, you found your other half on your first day at the kindergarten in the form of a very tiny, very excited pink ball of energy with a pigeon flying up her sleeve.

"Your tattoo is moving." She'd said, matter-of-factly

"Your's is too." You'd answered, not sure how to react.

You didn't know what it meant. None of you did. You were too young.

"It obviously means that we are the coolest people ever. Let's stick together and be friend!"

But to you, as you took her hand and started playing, this was a pefectly logic explanation.

(And it still is.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He just wanted to avoid his sisters. He'd never thought it'd allow him to find his soulmate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand, here's the last chapter. Enjoy!

Your sisters all found their soulmates when they were 13.

There was no problem with that, of course. There were instances of people finding their half at any age, some from the moment they were born and others, the last few seconds before passing away.

But for you, 17 years old and still soulmateless, it was the worst kind of pressure.

They thought you didn’t notice, but you did, you knew, you almost felt in your very core how they looked at you, what they thought about you. Oh, poor guy, they thought. I feel sorry for him, another was probably thinking.

And it hurt.

You slowly started to stay away from them. You found all the excuses possible and imaginable; you had to find a book at the library, you had to help at Ren’s café today; slowly, but surely, you started driving yourself away from them.

And as you started feeling better, the idea of a soulmate slowly drove away as well, forgotten.

When it happened, it was the least expected moment for you. You were heading towards the stadium to watch a soccer match or whatever -the sport in itself didn’t matter to you to be honest, but it gave you a good excuse for today- and something started to tickle your back.

Something small, that climbed on you and headed toward your left arm.

Something light, so very light, that it was a wonder if it had an actual volume.

Something you recognized on the back of your hand, the tiny moose tattoo you were born with.

You started running.

You were ready for everything, really. Your sisters gave you a good idea about what you should be ready for; same or opposite gender, younger or older, human or faunus, anything.

Yeah, you were ready.

You stumbled in the middle of the stadium. For a second, you were confused, then you made eye contact with the tiger tattoo climbing on its owner’s cheek.

Owner being the most confused and famous redhead of the town and probably also the country.

…You were _so_ not ready.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, by the way, if anyone wanna take the idea to make a bigger fic or just wanna know more about the au in general -since, sadly, I wasn't able to put in everything I've thought about- don't hesitate to tell me I'll be happy to tell you more about the au and read whatever you decide to do.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Underneath](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8539468) by [FerinHite451](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FerinHite451/pseuds/FerinHite451)




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